CURSING IN THE KITCHEN

NY TIMES on foul mouthed chefs:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/dinin ... ?th&emc=th

Swearing was pretty common in the kitchens I worked in. From the head chef down to the line cooks, most swore like sailors. Not the setting for those who are hyper-sensitive to foul language.

The one thing that rarely happened & is unacceptable in my opinion, & that seems to happen on Hells Kitchen quite often is all the crying. Crying and abandoning your station at any place I worked got that individual a quick trip to the unemployment office.

I have to disagree.

All the kitchens I worked in were "curse-free" zones. I am not saying that noone EVER cursed, just that it was not tolerated - either by the managers or by the other employees. And yes, these kitchens were high volume with every it as much pressure as these TV "reality" shows.

Allowing cursing to go on in an environment where everyone is carrying at a minimum a 8" chefs knife and a paring knife and a few other lethal weapons is pretty dangerous. Also, I usually had at least a few ex-cons and other rehabilitation people on my staff.

Also, on occasion, all people "lose it." "Losing it" may mean cursing, crying, or the like. At that point, I sent the employee to the locker room for 15-30 minutes to cool down and to get themselves composed. After that time, generally people were able to get back to their station in a composed manner and have a productive shift. If I fired everyone who had a bad shift, well, I would have no employees left

jlawrence01 wrote:I have to disagree.

All the kitchens I worked in were "curse-free" zones. I am not saying that noone EVER cursed, just that it was not tolerated - either by the managers or by the other employees. And yes, these kitchens were high volume with every it as much pressure as these TV "reality" shows.

Allowing cursing to go on in an environment where everyone is carrying at a minimum a 8" chefs knife and a paring knife and a few other lethal weapons is pretty dangerous. Also, I usually had at least a few ex-cons and other rehabilitation people on my staff.

Also, on occasion, all people "lose it." "Losing it" may mean cursing, crying, or the like. At that point, I sent the employee to the locker room for 15-30 minutes to cool down and to get themselves composed. After that time, generally people were able to get back to their station in a composed manner and have a productive shift. If I fired everyone who had a bad shift, well, I would have no employees left

Interesting work environment,

Where I worked we were not swearing and being confrontational with each other, more along the lines of the conversation in a mens locker room, or a poker game. These were very busy kitchens, and allowed for a loose atmosphere & the ability to not have a manager censoring language worked to our advantage.

I just find crying at work pretty bad, and especially abandoning a work station is a sign of someone who is not committed, and a quitter who will probably let you down when going gets tough, better to cut your loses and get rid of the weak link. The kitchens were always fully staffed with no issue of finding a long line of possible replacements.

My kitchens were all either corporate, e.g. Levi, or so intimate that patrons could probably hear/see you. So either way, not much cursing going on. A certain genial, bawdy bonhomie existed in most places, but was expressed in Spanish. The Levi restaurant (Sears Tower, when they first opened) had a couple of screamers in management, but they weren't foul-mouthed screamers. Just bad managers screaming in ineffectual PG-13.

I've heard from a number of chefs that they had to clean up their language once working in a display kitchen.